Google must have something new going on!!

I posted this message this morning after trying Google for quite some time and every time you put the word SCAM after a company's name the message below would come up. Backstage, bizparentz, trade publications, consumer affairs...list went on.

It seems to have stopped now...it COULD HAVE BEEN something that either Google tried to do, to sell software (see below) and people complained or a mistake on their part this morning but anyone that does have a company, keep an eye out.

I've tried it with AOL and Internet explorer. Anyone else seeing this as well? I don't think it's just my computer. Doesn't happen with a Yahoo search or any other search engine, just GOOGLE!

This morning I put all names in, JRP, ACT, even the BIGGEST SCAMMER OF ALL IN JAIL, LOU PEARLMAN


Looks like Google is trying to sell a product...software! (see below)

If you are an owner of one of these sites you have to ask Google to review your website!


THIS MORNING THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED:

Google searched - Academy of Cinema and Television scam..

This is what comes up when you click on the result.



Warning - visiting this web site may harm your computer!
Suggestions:
Return to the previous page and pick another result.
Try another search to find what you're looking for.
Or you can continue to http://bbs.backstage.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/9611031/m/598106421 at your own risk. For detailed information about the problems we found, visit Google's Safe Browsing diagnostic page for this site.

For more information about how to protect yourself from harmful software online, you can visit StopBadware.org.

If you are the owner of this web site, you can request a review of your site using Google's Webmaster Tools. More information about the review process is available in Google's Webmaster Help Center.
Advisory provided by

It's not just scam sites. I Googled "picture cropping" because I wanted to crop a picture, and every listing came up with that same warning ("This site may be harmful to your computer!")

But then I tried Googling "cats", and those sites were all fine, no warnings.

So I don't know what's going on with Google!

quote:

Originally posted by TMR:
It's not just scam sites. I Googled "picture cropping" because I wanted to crop a picture, and every listing came up with that same warning ("This site may be harmful to your computer!")

But then I tried Googling "cats", and those sites were all fine, no warnings.

So I don't know what's going on with Google!

I'm hoping they just messed up this morning! Glad you saw it too. I was going crazy thinking it was my computer and tried 2 others in my house.

There are very legit company's coming up with that warning attached to their webpage.

Something for the Federal Trade Commission to look into or Fed Attorney General's office if it happens again.

Thanks again for verifying that I wasn't seeing things! Company's reputations are on the line.

I don't get those warnings om my computer. Might be something in your "preferences" filter for google?

quote:

Originally posted by Newbie_here:
I don't get those warnings om my computer. Might be something in your "preferences" filter for google?

Nope. I used that word scam a lot in searches and it happened for a good hour this morning, maybe a little longer, on three different computers with different virus software and controls.

I DID find this blog..seems like others saw this too. I thought I was starting to go crazy with all this scam stuff lately.

Lets hope this was tempoary insanity by the Google Guys! The blog does mention the software company. If google was trying to sell this and putting company's reputations on the line, that's pretty LOW!


http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/4550/Google...ter-GOOGMAYHARM.aspx

"Low and behold, just about every site in the search results was giving me “This site may harm your computer” warning. Hmmm, me thinks. Something’s not right. So, I do some more searches, same issue...." CLICK ABOVE LINK TO READ THE BLOG.

google has a lot of "splaing to do" !!!

Sorry all you misbehaving acting schools, put down your champagne glasses you're back on google with the word scam where you belong.

Others..keep a watch out for your company website if google tries this again.

Human error caused a glitch that returned the message "this site may harm your computer" for all Google search results for about an hour Saturday morning, the company said.

Google works with a nonprofit organization that runs the site StopBadware.org to obtain a list of URLs that are known to install malicious software if users go to those sites. StopBadware researches complaints regarding sites and decides which URLs should be on the warning list, so "since each case needs to be individually researched, this list is maintained by humans, not algorithms," according to an official Google blog post Saturday morning credited to Marissa Mayer, the company's vice president of Search Products & User Experience.

Google "periodically" gets updates to the URL warning list and got such an update for release on its site Saturday morning. "Unfortunately (and here's the human error), the URL of '/' was mistakenly checked as a value to the file and '/' expands to all URLs," she wrote. "Fortunately, our on-call site reliability team found the problem quickly and reverted the file."

Mayer apologized in her post to anyone who was inconvenienced by the glitch and to site owners whose pages were incorrectly labeled as being malicious. "We will carefully investigate this incident and put more robust file checks in place to prevent it from happening again," she wrote.may be harmful to your computer."

StopBadware operates as a partnership among academic institutions, IT companies and volunteers, according to its site. It is operated out of Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

The google glitch makes the news:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28950149/wid/11915829?GT1=40000

Janet, you are faster than the news organizations! LOL